An Alternate Angle
by Hekateras
Summary: Order of the Stick: When you've fallen low enough, the only hope to climb back up is to reach for the clouds and pray that the sun does not melt your wings. Heavy spoilers.


Kyrie, my Kyrie...

It were those same words I had nonchalantly dismissed as ignorant gibberish when hearing them from the dwarf, snorted bitterly at when they had come out of the bard's mouth – _Elan_, who, for all intents and purposes, did not seem to be at all interested in achieving a reunion with Miss Starshine, for all he had said to assure me otherwise – so by the great elven gods, why did it have to hurt so much to hear them from you? The agony renews itself whenever my mind revisits that incident and even when my thoughts are elsewhere, the memory is like a bitter aftertaste that taints every moment, and it is perhaps merely an insignificant fraction of what I truly deserve. I am not certain of this, nor of anything else any longer – the deep-seated, comforting conviction that my actions were right was stolen from me in less than a minute of your impassioned enunciations, and yet there is a part of me that only wishes it had happened sooner.

I care only about my pride, and my magic. Victory, achievement, success – those are the gods I honour above any pantheon in this or any multiverse. Do you truly believe this, Kyrie? I have heard this so many times, muttered by the dwarf in his typical underestimation of my keen elven senses – or was he perhaps attempting to tell me, but unwilling to do so to my face? - and once more driven home painfully by those accursed fiends – but no, that didn't mean anything, did it? The dwarf knew nothing – no, that is incorrect, for had I not _told_ him, explaining my grievances to him in great detail? - he knew, but it _meant_ nothing to him. How could he even bear to suggest we leave two of our own behind and move on to face Xykon at Girard's Gate – all personal attachments aside, _Xykon_, who has proven so far out of our league that facing him with only half of our already incompetent group would be effectively suicide? How could the dwarf suggest that and still display any expectation of me giving his ideas and opinions the benefit of doubt? And worse, how could he even dare to suggest that my pursuit of Miss Starshine was irrational, a product of _guilt_, when his own ideas were so ludicrous that they even trumped the usual established standards of our mismatched group?

No, the dwarf knows nothing of me or my mind, and it was easier yet to dismiss with the fiends – they are incarnations of evil; inflicting pain and spreading doubt is typical of their lot and one cannot expect otherwise. But Kyrie, to hear you utter those same words, judging me before you even hear my reasons... that I value power above all else, above the children, above _you_... This cannot be what you had meant to achieve, but after hearing it so many times, I am beginning to believe it myself, much as I am loath to. Perhaps the dwarf has been right all along, and perhaps the words of the fiends were all the more hurtful in their truthfulness, but does that not contradict my previous conclusions and establish me as a deluded fool, no less judgemental than I accuse Durkon and yourself of being?

I dread the coming of nightfall, for surely a new memory will add itself to the repertoire of reiterative nightmares that have been plaguing me ever since the battle and I will once again find myself trapped in reviewing my mistakes... And by the gods, I can recognise so much of them already. I should have explained myself to you – yes, you had stopped me, having already made up your mind about me before hearing a single word I had to say, and I truly hope that you too will come to realise that you acted cruelly – but how could I expect otherwise? The house had been reduced to acid-splattered ambers, the children were wailing on the ground, their precious little legs savagely _broken_, and you had been crucified on a tree, watching them with the same kind of excruciating impotence that had very nearly broken _me_ scant minutes ago. I should have been patient and insistent and yes, there was every good reason in the world not to tarry while my debt grew with each passing second, but you deserve better. The least I could have done was take you and the children to the village cleric, or to Aarindarius, for that matter, but I chose to flee. I had convinced myself at that moment that you would not have wanted me to keep the power even to help you, but given that I was already going against your wishes, why should that have stopped me? I should have acted, helped you, at the very least I should have_ said _something beyond the muttered apology that was little more than the tip of the iceberg - you _had_ to know, and I _could _have made you understand. Given the verbose way in which I tend to express myself, it is truly ironic that I am now to blame for not saying _enough_.

I had left you in order to fix everything else, matters that are, objectively speaking, more crucial than our relationship, but I am fully aware that there was no necessity to leave you like _that_. Yet it is not all selfishness and cowardice, I swear. I could feel that I should not, _must not_ try to fix this while still wielding this power, lest I am once again tempted to go the easy route, one that would be helpful but represent a betrayal of every manner of trust between us. I am quick to use spells, and that is why I must face you later, after all of this is over, because casting _Repair Proverbial Burned Bridges_ is not the answer here, and I could never forgive myself if I accounted for my own shortcomings by intruding into and altering your mind by way of any of the advanced Enchantment spells I currently have access to. Magic is a tool and an indispensable one given how high the stakes have risen, and that is why I should not use it as a crutch for all of my deficiencies in other areas. I could grow so much better – so much more powerful, even – if I simply learned to face my weaknesses and come to know myself better. I should have realised that far sooner and perhaps that is what you and many others have been trying to tell me.

There was so much to be done. I was praying that Miss Starshine was still alive – for is not the simplest explanation for my failures the most probable one? And what could be simpler than the idea that she had been killed and was impossible to locate solely for that reason? Perhaps I _am_ irrational, in the sense that I was clinging to the hope that there was instead some extraordinarily advanced abjuration blocking my efforts – even though that would have meant that she was likely still in Xykon's domain and thus probably _wishing_ she had already died – I shuddered to think of the predicament she might have been in. I had to find her, and then, despite my misgivings, I intended to see to it that the dwarf and her beloved idiot bard were present, as well. This was more than a matter of friendship – after all, the fate of the entire world hinges on our success against Xykon, and that is the factor that is dictating my next action.

We are together at last. It was a relief to see Miss Starshine unscathed, a relief that somewhat dulled the shock – after everything I had given up, after giving up_ you_, to find out that my concern for the reunion of the party had been completely irrelevant, that Miss Starshine had succeeded in arranging a Sending spell that had reached the dwarf... Everything I had done has been for nothing and our reunion would not have arrived a single second sooner or later had I _not _occupied myself with this problem during all these months. So much could have been different had I not left the ship – I would regret that decision, but at this point, regret is meaningless. So much would have been different had I simply known that Miss Starshine had already been found, as well.. Perhaps I will later ask the dwarf why he did not inform me of this development, but given the terms on which we parted, I am not certain I wish to hear the answer.

Durkon is preoccupied now, repeating over and over the incantation that shall finally mark a milestone in our progress against Xykon. Ten minutes. Six hundred seconds. With my life span of centuries, I have never even imagined that such a minuscule segment of time could seem so meaningful. Yet why wait? At this point, what do I have left to lose? Recent events have proven well enough that, for all of the supposed indispensability of powerful arcane casters, my allies do not truly need me to overcome their obstacles. Contrary to my preconceptions, they are not so direly in need of a spellcaster that they cannot be left without arcane supervision to guard their every step. And when I return, triumphant, perhaps we will be able to better focus our efforts of protecting the Gates. After having paid so much for this power, and having achieved so little, attempting this is the least I can do.

By crushing Xykon, perhaps I will finally make peace with myself – after all, I could never return and look you in the face and say that I abandoned you to achieve nothing at all. With the safety of the world as my trophy, your forgiveness would no longer be such an outrageous thing to hope for. I can only have faith that you will feel the same way.

For the safety of the world, for my friends, for the tedious Azurites, for what still remains of my pride and dignity, I must succeed in this.

For you, Kyrie.

Epic Teleport.


End file.
